Leonard earned 16 first-team votes and 57 second team, giving him 89 points overall to finish ninth in the voting, which is done by select panel of NBA media including Jeff McDonald and Mike Monroe of the Express-News. He becomes the seventh Spur to earn All-Defensive honors, joining Duncan, David Robinson, Bruce Bowen, Alvin Robertson, Dennis Rodman and George Johnson.

Already three years into his NBA career, Leonard has established himself as a sound individual defender while also capable of causing havoc with steals and blocks. He averaged 1.76 steals per game to finish 10th in the league, the highest individual total for a Spur since Manu Ginobili averaged 1.77 in 2003-04. Leonard also averaged 0.8 blocks per game. The Spurs allowed 5.9 fewer points per 100 possessions when he was on the court during the regular season, per 82games.com.

That same site had the Spurs giving up 1.1 more points/100 when Duncan was on the court. But he also finished fourth in the entire league in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus, a measure of individual defensive impact while accounting for teammates and opposing lineups.

Duncan’s shot blocking dropped by roughly one per game per 36 minutes from last season, when he rebounded to make the second team after missing any All-Defensive recognition for two seasons. Before that, Duncan made first- or second-team in each of his first 13 professional campaigns.

Tony Parker (four votes, one first team) and Danny Green (three votes, one first team) rounded out the voting for the Spurs.